You ever wonder? Does curiosity ever get the best of you?
You know…that special someone from back in the day-how are they holding up? Have the ravages of time taken their toll? Or are they still fine?
If you are a veteran of the custom car scene, car mags in general, or pro street movement in particular, then Mark Grimes’ Kandy Blue Pearl 1965 Chevy Malibu you see here may ring a few bells. After all, way back in 1987 when it first debuted, it snagged the elusive Triple Crown of Pro Street, capturing Street Machine of the Year honors along with Best Engineered and Best Pro Street at the Street Machine Nationals. It was on the cover of almost every major car magazine of the era, shown heavily for a few years-but then-it seemed to disappear.
But look closely at the pictures, kids. Three decades later, it is still as smokin’ hot as ever. And why wouldn’t it be? A self-described car fanatic since the age of 9, Grimes has had a steady stream of wild rides for pretty much all his life. From drag cars like a mini-tubbed 1972 Monte Carlo on nitrous (“I blew it up pushing the NOS button too many times!” he joked) and a 7/8-scale Top Sportsman ’57 Chevy, to wild street rides like a drop-top pro street 1968 Cadillac Coupe DeVille with a 500-cube Caddy powerplant, but the one build style he’s always gravitated towards was pro street. “My first pro street car was actually a 1976 Chevette,” he recalled. With a full tube chassis and a built small block, it was a relatively wild feature-car quality build at the infancy of the pro street movement. “I traded it in 1981 for a brand new 1980 Malibu, which I then completely tore apart,” he added. With a re-worked chassis, full cage, fat McCreary meats, and a blown small block, it was even wilder than the Chevette. So too was the next build—a pro street Vega with a blown 454….Read more…Click the magazine image.
